Amusement park attractions, in which patrons move through the attraction in ride vehicles, typically include a set number of ride vehicles. The set number is determined based in part on limitations imposed by the physical space available to the entire attraction, the amount of money an amusement park has allotted to the attraction, the number of patrons which the ride operator desires to move through the attraction per hour (sometimes referred to as ride throughput) and anticipated downtime of ride vehicles due to scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. Ride vehicles undergoing scheduled or unscheduled maintenance are typically removed from patrons' view. The maintenance may take place in a holding or maintenance area, which would be separate from any loading, unloading, and show areas of the attraction.
Until recently, most amusement parks made use of ride vehicles that were mechanically coupled to a track and/or an electrical bus bar. Older ride vehicles, or groups of ride vehicles connected like train cars, might be coupled to a mechanical cable or chain. The cable or chain would pull the ride vehicle or group of ride vehicles through the ride. To stay on a given path throughout the ride, the ride vehicles could travel on tracks or be constrained to follow a channel on the floor of the ride, through which the vehicle was coupled to the cable or chain. More modern attractions utilize electric motors on each vehicle or group of vehicles to power drive wheels thereon. When connected to an electrical power source, the electric motors provided the locomotive motion to propel the ride vehicles through the ride. These vehicles were constrained to travel on a track, in order to maintain a substantially fixed distance from an electrical bus bar which often would be positioned next to the track. Electrical power was fed to the vehicle from the bus bar via an electrically conductive brush bridging between the vehicle and the bus bar.
More recently, ride vehicles have been developed that carry their own stored power in the form of electrical battery cells. These vehicles eliminate the need for an electrical bus bar, such as that described above. Battery operated ride vehicles can travel with or without tracks through a ride under their own power. If the vehicle travels without tracks, it will typically travel on wheels. A ride vehicle that travels through an attraction without being restricted to travel on a track is referred to as a “trackless ride vehicle.”
Trackless ride vehicles may travel through the ride along a floor that has a wire embedded below the surface of the floor, or adhered to the surface of the floor. The wire defines a path on which the vehicle travels. Typically, signals emitted from the wire are used to maintain the location of the vehicle on the path. Although wire-guided trackless ride vehicles eliminate the need for a track, they are, for practical purposes, still limited to following the path defined by the wire. Wired paths cannot cross each other, and cannot be easily moved to reconfigure paths through the ride.
All attractions, also referred to as amusement rides, require places for passengers to load and unload from the ride vehicles used in the attraction. Because ride vehicles have been constrained to travel on tracks or to follow a wire, ride vehicles have typically proceeded serially, one after another, along a closed loop in the attraction. The serial procession of ride vehicles proceeds from the loading area, through a show area 132, to an unloading area and, if the loading and unloading areas are not the same area, back to the loading area. This serial procession of ride vehicles is undesirable.
As stated above, amusement attractions typically have a predetermined set number of ride vehicles. Accordingly, this predetermined number of ride vehicles (less a subset undergoing maintenance) travel continuously around the above described loop. Time is provided at the loading/unloading areas for passengers to embark and disembark from their vehicles, at the beginning and ending points on the loop, respectively. However, this time may not be sufficient, for example, if it takes one passenger a greater than normal amount of time to fasten his seatbelt at the loading area, or, again for example, if a ride operator requires a greater than normally allotted time to clean a vehicle at the unloading area (perhaps due to unwanted material left by a sick passenger).
In some attractions, vehicles may form subsets which all load/unload together. The subset of vehicles behind the stopped vehicles may be spaced back from the stopped vehicles to allow time for normal loading/unloading. However, if the stopped vehicles are not in a state to be restarted, once that time has expired, action must be taken to prevent following vehicles from entering the loading/unloading areas. Accordingly, a ride operator must stop the approaching subset of vehicles. The longer the delay in restarting the vehicles in the loading/unloading area becomes, the greater the number of vehicles that must be stopped before they enter the loading/unloading area. As the delay continues, and because all vehicles are constrained to travel serially on a single loop, the number vehicles that should have entered the loading/unloading area, but for the delay of restarting the vehicles in the loading/unloading area, begins to grow and form what might be referred to as a log-jam, backlog, backup, or stoppage. Alternatively, for example when vehicles may not form subsets, the ride operator must stop all of the vehicles in the ride simultaneously. In either situation, ride throughput, that is the number of patrons passing through the ride per hour, deteriorates, and an attractions time interval, which will be described later herein, cannot be maintained.
This problem exists even in rides that permit passengers to load or unload adjacent to a moving platform, in attractions that may have been designed to maintain continuous travel of ride vehicles at a fixed velocity through the loading/unloading and show areas of a ride. In such attractions, the passenger may step from a fixed platform to a moving platform adjacent to an empty ride vehicle. The relative velocity between the passenger and the ride vehicle may be zero or close thereto. However, the velocity of the vehicle relative to the loop will be greater than zero. The passenger can, theoretically, enter the ride vehicle before the moving platform ends, while the ride vehicle continues at a constant velocity through the attraction. If, however, at the end of the moving platform, the passenger is not securely in the ride vehicle, the ride operator must stop the entire ride to give that passenger time to settle into the vehicle. In other words, the entire serial procession of ride vehicles in the attraction must be stopped, at least to ensure the safety of the unseated passenger. In this situation, ride throughput deteriorates, and the attraction's time interval cannot be maintained.
A reduction in ride throughput is a real problem for all amusement rides, especially those popular rides that have a great number of people waiting in line to experience the ride. The greater the number and length of delays, the longer those people waiting in line will be required to wait.
Most recently, an innovative navigation system has been integrated with a trackless ride vehicle. The navigation system allows the ride vehicle to navigate anywhere on the floor of an amusement ride without any need to follow a track or a wire.
What is needed is a method and system of managing the throughput of an amusement attraction to avoid or eliminate backlogs due to delayed ride vehicles in loading and/or unloading areas. The needed method and system could ensure continuous travel of ride vehicles through the ride without a need to stop the ride due to backlogs. The method could maximize throughput and ensure that an attraction's time interval was maintained. These methods and systems are likewise needed in non-amusement park ride environments.